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An Indian voter – All Indians are under -represented due to oversized constituencies
A political storm is preparing in India, the first waves already hitting the southern part of the country.
The leaders call for mass mobilization to protect the political interests of the region in the midst of an animated controversy on the restart of the electoral seats to reflect changes in population over time.
In a thrust with high issues, they urge citizens to “have more children”, using meetings and media campaigns to amplify their message: that the delimitation process could move the balance of powers.
“The delimitation is a sword of damocles suspended above southern India”, explains MK Stalin, chief minister of Tamil Nadu, one of the five states of southern India, and an Arch rival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (The other four are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana.)
These five states represent 20% of the 1.4 billion people in India. They also surpass the rest of the country in health, education and economic prospects. A child is less likely to be born here than in the north, due to the drop in population growth rates.
Their leaders fear that the most prosperous South will lose parliamentary seats in the future, a “punishment” to have fewer children and generate more wealth. The richer southern states have always contributed more to federal income, with poorer and very populated states from the North receiving larger actions according to needs.
The constitution of India obliges the seats to be allocated to each state according to its population, with roughly equal size districts. It also requires a reallocation of the seats after each census, reflecting updated population figures.
India has therefore resized parliamentary seats three times on the basis of the decennial census in 1951, 1961 and 1971. Since then, governments of all bands have interrupted the exercise, fearing an imbalance of representation due to different fertility rates between states.
The next delimitation exercise is set for 2026, but uncertainty is looming because India has not made a census since 2011, without a clear calendar for the moment when it takes place.
This prepared the ground for a potential crisis. “Tamil Nadu directs the charge and India is on the verge of a federal impasse,” explains Yamini Aiyar, principal researcher at Brown University
The number of seats in the Lok Sabha – The lower room of the Parliament representing deputies directly elected – has gone from 494 to 543 and has been constant since then. The frost means that despite the growth of the population of India since 1971, the number of seats in Lok Sabha per state remained the same, without any new added seat.
In 1951, each deputy represented just over 700,000 people. Today, this number has reached an average of 2.5 million per Mp, more than three times the population represented by a member of the House of Representatives of the United States. In comparison, a British deputy represents around 120,000 people.
Experts say that all Indians are under -represented – but not also – because the constituencies are too important. (The initial constitution crowned the ratio to a MP for 750,000 people)
That’s not all. Using the census data and the projections of the population, the economist Shruti Rajagopalan of the George Mason University highlighted “severe malice” – an unequal distribution of political representation – in India.
Consider this. In the Uttar Pradesh (UP), the most populous state in India with more than 240 million people, each deputy represents around three million citizens.
Meanwhile, in Kerala, where fertility rates are similar to many European countries, a deputy represents approximately 1.75 million.
This means that the average kerala voter in the south has 1.7 times more influence in the choice of a deputy than a voter in the north.
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In Kerala, with European fertility rates, a deputy represents approximately 1.75 million people
Ms. Rajagopalan also notes that Tamil Nadu and Kerala now have nine and six more seats than their population, while populated and poorer states like Bihar and most have nine and 12 seats less than their proportion. (Stalin warns that the Tamil Nadu could lose eight seats if the delimitation occurs in 2026, based on the figures of the projected population.)
By 2031, the problem will intensify: UP and the Bihar will fall a dozen seats less than their proportion of population, while the Tamil Nadu will probably have 11 seats more than its proportion, other states falling “somewhere between the two”, according to Ms. Rajagopalan.
“Consequently,” she says, “India no longer respects its fundamental constitutional principle of” a person, a vote “.” To make this principle significant, the constituency sizes must be almost equal.
Experts have proposed several solutions, many of which will require a strong bipartite consensus.
An option is to increase the number of seats in the low house.
In other words, India should return to the constitutional ratio of origin of a MP for 750,000 people, which would extend the Lok Sabha to 1,872 seats. (The new parliament building has the capacity of 880 seats, so it would need a major upgrade.)
The other option is that the total number of seats in Lok Sabha increases insofar as no state loses its current number of electoral seats – to achieve the number of seats in Lok Sabha should be 848, by several estimates.
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In UP, each deputy represents about three million people
Accompanying this decision, experts like Ms. Rajagopalan defend a more decentralized tax system.
In this model, states would have higher income powers and mostly retain their entire income. Federal funds would then be allocated according to development needs. Currently, states receive less than 40% of total income, but spend about 60%, while the rest is increased and spent by the central government.
A third solution is to reform the composition of the upper room of the Parliament. Rajya Sabha represents the interests of states, with seats allocated in proportion to the population and capped at 250.
The members of Rajya Sabha are elected by the legislatures of the States, and not directly by the public. Milan Vahnav de Carnegie Endowment for Peace suggests that a radical approach would be to correct the number of seats per state in the upper room, similar to the American Senate.
“The transformation of the upper chamber into a real place of debate on the interests of the States could potentially soften the opposition to a reallocation of seats in the lower chamber,” he said.
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The new parliament building in Delhi has a capacity of 880 MPS
Then, there are other proposals such as the division of major states – the best five states in India have more than 45% of total seats.
Miheer Karandikar of Takshashila Institution, a group of reflection based in Bangalore, quotes as an example of the way in which great states distort things. The share of the UP of total votes expressed in India is currently around 14%. He believes that this would probably go to 16% after the delimitation, “which allows him to maintain his most important state status politically and in terms of legislative influence”. The division of a state like UP could help things.
For the moment, the anxious leaders of the South – whose rhetoric is partly political with the elections to the Tamil Nadu which is looming next summer – have been joined by counterparts in Punjab to urge the government to maintain the current seats and to freeze the electoral limits for the next 30 years, beyond 2026. In other words, it is a call to the same thing, by preserving the status.
The Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party has made few significant statements so far. The Minister of the Interior, Amit Shah, said that the southern states will not lose “even one seat” in the coming delimitation, although the meaning is not clear. Meanwhile, the federal government’s decision to retain education funds and label the leadership of Tamil Nadu as “undemocratic and non -civilized” on a controversial educational policy has deepened divisions.
The political scientist Suhas Palshikar warns that the North-South division threatens the federal structure of India. “The North-South prism can only persuade people and the parties of the North to put pressure for a delimitation which would give them an advantage. Such a counter mobilization in the North may make it impossible to reach a negotiated regulation,” noted Mr. Palshikar.
He thinks that expanding the size of the Lok Sabha and ensuring that no state loses its current strength is not only a “politically prudent step”, but something that “will enrich the idea of democracy in the Indian context”. Balancing the representation will be the key to preserving the tense federal spirit from India.
